Dead metaphors are best left to their slumber. There is, however, one long-deceased member of the club we might want to resurrect, if just for a little while. To make 'a mountain out of a molehill' refers to rushing to the emergency ward to treat a mosquito bite, or screaming for the restaurant manager because your cutlery is not quite properly aligned. It also refers to turning a small incident between a tourist and a bus driver into a national tragedy.

It all started when a Spanish tourist, Isabel Raymundo Cuesta, asked a bus driver for her six cents change. Apparently this proved too much of an affront for the man. He got savage and did what savages do best, scream and shout and flail about.

Cuesta alleges she was pretty much booted off the bus. Understandably shocked, she did what every normal person would do. She filed a report with the Public Transport Association (PTA). She also vowed, in the heat of the moment, never again to visit Malta.

The story topped the online charts in no time. Predictably, the comments were expansive. Some blamed the driver for the imminent collapse of Malta's tourist industry and the subsequent mass starvation of the population.

Others bashed the Prime Minister for not taking Route 17 to work every morning (the hauteur of that man, no wonder he's so out of touch with The People). I'm told someone even asked for the bus driver's head to be stuck on a pike at the airport. That particular comment, however, was censored.

The Public Transport Association rightly apologised to Cuesta and promised to look into the case. The matter should have stopped there. But no, the country's engine room went into duple dominant mode. Mario de Marco called the incident a "national shame" and ordered that Cuesta be given a free holiday to make up for her distress.

As it is, she will be made to eat her words if she does pick up the freebie. And she will: The Times quoted her as saying that she "may give Malta another chance". Which is nice.

I have mixed feelings about this. It's good to see the Public Transport Association and the Parliamentary Secretary take their job seriously. At the same time, I find the whole "national shame" and free holiday thing an over-reaction, to put it mildly. What happened here was that one bus driver acted like a total boor. That's hardly a matter for the Maltese in general to gouge their eyes out and roam the world.

The implication is that we're not too confident about what we have to offer. If we were, we would quietly have assumed that Cuesta will remember the many mornings she spent diving at Comino, the visits to the temples and Valletta, and the harbour cruise. We would have guessed that she will not make it her mission to blot Malta off the tourist map for the rest of humanity.

I've had isolated bad experiences pretty much everywhere I've been. In India, I was told by police not to waste their time with silly matters like stolen wallets. In Switzerland I've paid through the nose for the worst plonk imaginable.

So far, the free holiday to Udaipur hasn't reached me, nor has the letter of apology from the Bundesrat. I quite suspect the Indian and Swiss governments assume that I never expected a national population to be uniformly honest and hospitable. They're right, and I will take as many more holidays in their beautiful countries as I can afford.

The second point concerns our buses and bus drivers. I have to goad myself to write this, reason being that I've just spent 10 minutes navigating a cloud of black bus exhaust on the Mġarr road. But fair's fair, and I really think bus drivers get a bit more flak than they deserve. They've become a sort of national bogeyman, a favourite target by default of the chattering classes (who probably seldom use buses in any case).

That's partly their fault. The storming of the Bastille by a crowd of bare-chested hooligans two years ago did nothing to improve their image in the eyes of the public. Nor do the procedural tantrums at the wheel, the zeal for the outer traffic lane like it were the true path to nirvana, and the philosophical approach to such trivia as timetables and bus stops.

But that's the nasty bit. The rest - the birdcage on the dashboard, Elvis playing at 10,000 decibels, flirting with lady passengers who show more flesh than average, and so on - is pure charm. What's more, tourists love it. There are reams of uploads on Youtube of Maltese bus drivers having fun. My favourite, 'Bus driver in Malta', shows an amused tourist looking on as the driver gesticulates and yells on his mobile about someone who 'pprova jfottini' ('tried to diddle me'). All this while hurtling down Tower Road.

What I'm saying is that the relation between bus drivers and tourism has at least two facets. On one hand, tourists often complain that bus drivers are rude, lack punctuality, and so on. On the other, many tourists find themselves drawn to the erratic personage at the wheel - and to the eclectic furnishings of his 'trakk'.

I'd go further. It may well be that one facet derives from the other. I've in mind Lampedusa's remark that the beauty of Sicily and its "squalor and decay" are linked. I somehow feel that if bus drivers were to be tamed into something out of Brideshead Revisited, they would also lose their charm. So, even as we 'condemn' unacceptable behaviour that damages our tourist industry, we might also keep in mind that its gentler relative is one of Malta's hottest draws.

I think the dead metaphor applies very well in this case. I also think it may have something to do with the tendency to get homicidal the minute bus drivers are mentioned. I wonder how many tourists vow never again to visit Malta when they find themselves swimming in tuna goo at Delimara or Buġibba? Now wouldn't that be worth a stack of free holidays?

mafalzon@hotmail.com